


Girls In White Dresses And Boys With Old Crushes

by deandratb



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Teenage AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 21:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12756255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Prompt fic; pre-series teenage AU.“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you’re at a wake instead of a ball.” Alice sent him her most withering glare. She hadn’t asked, let alone invited a strange boy to come over and comment on how out of place she was. She was painfully aware.





	Girls In White Dresses And Boys With Old Crushes

**Author's Note:**

> For [by-surprise](https://by-surprise.tumblr.com/). Prompt: **young Alice meeting young Matthew at her debutante ball**

Alice Harvey lingered at the edge of the ballroom, testing the theory that if she held perfectly still she could be mistaken for a statue rather than a debutante, and be left alone.

Her hopes were dashed when a boy caught her eye from across the room, heading her way in all his lanky, slightly rumpled glory. 

She could already feel the panic bubbling up. How was she supposed to talk to him? What could she say? Talking to people she knew was hard enough, when they treated her like an oddity who’d been dropped among them...strangers were even worse. 

Her mother told her constantly that with practice she would get over her “nerves,” but the woman was a social butterfly, active in all the town clubs and never happier than when she was the center of attention. She simply couldn't understand.

Trying to ignore the way his collar itched, Matthew loped toward the striking brunette, joining her in watching the groups of girls as they mingled and squealed.

“This is supposed to be the first day of the rest of your life, ‘innit?”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” she replied stiffly, touching her pinned hair for the fourth time. It refused to stay in place no matter what she did. Someday, she’d chop the lot of it off and be done with it.

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you’re at a wake instead of a ball.”

Alice sent him her most withering glare. She hadn’t asked, let alone invited a strange boy to come over and comment on how out of place she was. She was painfully aware.

"There are plenty of happy, fluttering girls you can go talk to instead."

Undaunted, he grinned. "Yeah, but I want to talk to you."

His smile was crooked, she noted with reluctant interest. "Why?"

"You look about as bored as I am." And sad, he thought, but was wise enough not to add.

“I'd rather be just about anywhere else," she admitted. 

"I thought girls went mad for this sort of thing," he said, turning back to the tableau of hormones and fine attire. "Getting to dress up and parade around."

Alice shuddered. "It's torture. My mother threatened to make me join her knitting club unless I attended--otherwise I'd be at home with a book right now."

"You don't like parties?"

Alice frowned out at the giggling girls with whom she could never quite fit in. "Not really."

"Me neither."

He caught the quick flash of her surprised, grateful smile. "Is that right?"

"Hate them. I'd rather be playing ball, or out on the river."

"Well, at least you're not the one on display. It's like we're confections in a store window, everyone staring and passing judgment."

"Passing judgment?"

"Haven't you noticed? All the parents are here to compare their daughters to the other girls...the mothers deciding which boys they might be able to win in marriage, the fathers lamenting how grown their girls are while they leer at the blossoming of the others. It's horrible."

"Nobody else seems to mind all that much," he pointed out.

"That's because they have cute boys to dance with and adults preening over them." Alice sighed, still staring at the other debs. "I just...I wish I were pretty.”

“Why? There’re more important things than that. You’re smart, and you’re loyal.”

“So is a beagle. If the best that can be said about me is that I have certain traits in common with a dog, then it’s no wonder I had trouble finding an escort.”

“Who’s the chap you came with, then?”

“Oh, Benton. He knows my cousin James...he only brought me out of pity, really. What about your date for the evening?”

“Sarah? She’s an old friend of the family, it’s not like that. Her boyfriend broke up with her a couple weeks back and she needed a replacement escort.”

“Ah.” Alice blinked. “Wait. When you said I’m smart, what did you mean? How could you know that?”

Matthew shrugged, scuffing one foot against the shiny floor. “You don’t remember me, do you? I was in your biology class.”

She frowned. “Two years ago? With Mr. Mackleroy?”

“That’s right. We had an uneven number and you didn’t have a lab partner. Which was probably for the best,” he added with a cheeky grin, “as you were miles ahead of the rest of us. Matthew Lawson.”

Brow furrowed, she searched her memory, but came up with nothing. “I don’t recall us ever speaking.”

“We didn’t.” At her look, he shrugged again. “I didn’t say we were friends."

"But you remember me."

"You're hard to forget," he said. "You set a table on fire."

She blushed. "I just wanted to test my solution."

"Yeah, well, it was correct," he replied. "And flammable."

He turned away from the crowds to face her. "Like I said, hard to forget. And you shared your lunch with that girl, Lydia, when the boys stole hers to make fun of it."

"She came from the city," Alice said, chin in the air. "There was nothing wrong with her just because her family was different."

"I wasn't saying there was!" Matthew protested. "No need to get upset. It was nice of you, I meant."

"Oh." Embarrassed, she twined her fingers together and squeezed. "Sorry."

"Point is, you're more than just what you look like," he said.

"Easy for you to say," she couldn't help answering. "Being picked on is terrible."

"You think I don't know that?" He tilted his head, wavy hair falling down over his bright eyes before he smoothed it back. "Boys are the worst."

Alice had given even less thought to the bullying habits of boys than she had to her fellow students in biology class two years ago. "Right."

"It's true. Why do you think I'm happiest alone on the water?" Matthew shook his head, changing the subject. "And you look fine, anyway."

"Fine?"

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"I really don't. I know that I'm not pretty."

Surveying her, Matthew made Alice want to sink into the floor. But as a matter of pride, she didn't flinch, or look away. At least he was nice, she thought, for a boy.

"Maybe not," he agreed after a long moment. "You're a bit...angular."

Huffing out a breath in annoyance, she barely resisted the urge to leave him where he stood. "Thanks a lot."

He raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't finished." Turning back to the floor, he found it easier to say the rest without looking at her. "You have brilliant eyes, and the longest legs. Your neck is really nice, the way it curves. Maybe you're not pretty, in that flighty, delicate way the other girls are. Too different for that. But...you're beautiful."

Alice was pretty sure she was bright red now, all the way down to the toes her mother had painted a soft pearly white that morning. She couldn't find any words in the wake of that astonishing speech. 

He was watching her carefully, well aware that she was just as likely to go prickly and abrupt on him as she was to take the compliment. She probably would never believe how keenly he did remember her...Alice Harvey, the unapproachably sharp, strangely gorgeous girl he'd harbored a crush on that entire year.

"Wanna dance?"

Slowly, still waiting for the joke that she was certain had to be on her, Alice nodded. "That...that would be nice."

Matthew smiled when she laid her hand across his arm, and led her to the floor. Now, maybe, if he could just manage to avoid stepping on her toes, she'd be willing to go out for ice cream next weekend.

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, in my head the title is sung to the tune of "These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. No, I do not know why. Thanks for reading!


End file.
